Since founding ExecuNet in 1988, Dave Opton has used his 40+ years of experience in Human Resources to develop the premier private business and career network for senior-level executives with salaries above $150,000.
Dave has worked with executive recruiters and six-figure leaders across all industries during his 20+ years as CEO and as a result, has learned about the most effective job search and career development strategies.

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

What's in a Logo

Joel Cheesman has a blog on recruitment and search engine optimization. With my level of technical expertise, it took me long conversations with our Tech team before I understood that search engine optimization wasn't just a fancy way of telling me to get my car winterized.

In any case, I read this blog with interest as do beaucoup other folks. He has a fun style to go along with insights that clearly mark him as a keen observer of the recruiting world in general and the online space in particular.

One of his recent posts was titled Kodak's New Logo and a Lesson in Employment Branding. Essentially Joel's point was that companies have more important stuff to be worried about than their logos -- like delivering a quality product and real customer service. He couldn't be more right.

It could be that it is still a "new year" so one still thinks a lot about what has gone before or maybe it was just the way he was driving home the point about logos versus substance that reminded me of why we have stuck to our knitting for the past 18 years. We have been approached many, many times by folks who wanted to partner with us and expand the market we serve. While some of these conversations sounded interesting on the surface, the more we thought about them, the more we came to the conclusion that if we really wanted to serve the senior level executive job marketplace, then we had better just keep our focus right where it has been since Day One.

I looked at our logo and I recalled the discussions that had taken place when we were designing it and agonizing over the different renderings, etc. What we decided was that when it was all over, it really mattered very little. Indeed, there aren't any of us here who even now remember what the other designs were. But there isn't anyone here who doesn't remember who our customer is and why, even with all the ads, blogs, mentions in articles, etc., that as we start 2006, we can still say to people that the single biggest source of new members in ExecuNet comes by referrals from current and/or former members, and when we are asked how we measure our effectiveness, our first response is: by reputation.

Joel's right, there are far more important things than cool looking logos.